Series: Union of the Rakes, #3
Traits & Tropes: road trip; soldier hero; widowed heroine; starched hero; age gap (older heroine); only one bed
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; England, 1817
Publication Date: 02.23.21
Heat Rating: 4
Rating: 4.5/5
Major Duncan McCameron has known nothing but discipline and war for years and is struggling to adjust to civilian life. When his friend the Duke of Rotherby asks him to escort a lady north it seems like an excellent getaway with a noble and useful purpose. He’s far less eager to depart when he learns the lady he’s to accompany is none other than Lady Farris, whose reckless disregard for the rules did not endear her to him the first time they met.
Beatrice, the Dowager Countess of Farris, is just rediscovering herself after years of being suffocated under her husband’s thumb and she has no intention of ever marrying again. Eager for new experiences, her destination is a week-long orgiastic house party and she’s looking forward to the road trip north as well. But now she’s trapped in a carriage with a stuffy, Scottish former soldier who doesn’t know how to have fun in the slightest. She begins to think she knows how to loosen him up a bit along the way.
Their trip is plagued with all manner of mishaps and new experiences, and the mild animosity between them electrifies into much more than either of them anticipated. But with a lady determined to experience everything and a strait-laced soldier who’s all too aware of duty and expectation, surely any attachment between them could only be temporary.
I was certain this was going to be a hands-down five star read for me and it was, up until the last ten percent or so. It seemed to me that Duncan did an awful lot of compromising while Beatrice wasn’t willing to give an inch. This undermined their relationship for me a bit because it made it seem as if she didn’t trust him, despite how often he’d proven himself to be very different from most men. Duncan wanted desperately to be loved and to have a place to belong and while he did get that it did still seem a bit incomplete to me. I adored Duncan as a hero. He struggled with PTSD and that vulnerability combined with the fact that sex meant something to him, and that he felt things so strongly just made me want to give him a hug. His rigid and rule-abiding exterior hid a sensitive, tender-hearted, modest man who could also be dominant in the bedroom. AKA the perfect hero. I did love that Beatrice brought Duncan out of his shell and helped him enjoy life and in turn he made her feel beautiful and accepted for who she was, I just wish she hadn’t been quite so rigid. This is one of the best road trip romances I’ve read, and I didn’t want to put it down. I do wish we’d gotten a scene with just Curtis and Rowe just to glimpse how things were resolved between them and perhaps another meeting of the Union, but I loved that the series ended with them all together again. I recommend this for anyone that wants a fun, fast-paced and steamy, but also sweet and emotional, read.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/906412078
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3839696151
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